


serpentine.

by Luvandia



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Brief mentions of Cartman and Butters, M/M, The Sorting Hat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 11:21:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14079798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luvandia/pseuds/Luvandia
Summary: In hindsight, they should have seen this coming. Craig isn’t conventionally smart, but Hogwarts isn’t conventional anything. It’s a school for magic, for fuck’s sake. Of course their core values would speak louder than their will, and of course Tweek has turned out rotten both inside and out.





	serpentine.

Of all the misadventures Tweek has lived through, this would be the most life-changing yet. 

That is, if he actually _lives_ through it. Everyone’s eyes are on him when he slips the Sorting Hat like a crown onto his head, feeling like a prince who hasn’t earned his title as the starving kingdom looks on. Only one set of eyes really matter in this moment, but he can’t find them in the crowd. All he can see are the people who want this over and done with so they can carry on with their day.

Tweek wants it too, really, but the hat unfortunately has a mind of its own and it takes _forever_ to deliberate over each student’s fate. The worst part is that it’s listening to his thoughts, and it knows he knows that it’s listening to his thoughts, and it’s sending his mind into a flurry of _‘what if’_ s and _‘maybe’_ s that just prolong the painful process. 

_Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff._

He feels so heavy. The stool might just give way beneath him and all of his worries.

A whoosh of magic answers him, light ribboning up and over his robes. He screams when the Sorting Hat speaks to him, quiets as Craig pushes his way through the throng of students to reach him, calms once they’re holding hands again. They look at the hat together, Tweek going cross-eyed to peek at its rim.

“Hogwarts has lived through centuries, and through those years I learn—that Hufflepuff is what you seek, so desperately you yearn,” the hat says from within its ragged cloth, so quiet that Craig doesn’t react. Only Tweek can hear it, then. Only Tweek will learn himself the way the hat has. “Belonging to a certain house? That’s myth the old wives tell. It’s Slytherin that draws you out, with them you’ll learn you well.”

But— but Slytherin isn’t—

It isn’t _him_. Slytherin is for people like Cartman, people like Butters, people with potential and ambition and the will to rule the world. Humans like him, anomalies without the bloodline to back his magic, have no place in this House. Jesus, has there even been a muggleborn Slytherin in school history?

_I can’t_ , thinks Tweek desperately. The teachers are keeping the students hushed; everyone knows by now that Tweek Tweak is part of a hatstall. _This— this is way too much pressure, man, just sort me into any other house and let me go!_

Craig, who had gone right before him, has found himself a permanent place in Ravenclaw. They’d been hoping to get into Hufflepuff together, and now, faced with this, Tweek clings harder to the shreds of their plans past.

In hindsight, they should have seen this coming. Craig isn’t conventionally smart, but Hogwarts isn’t conventional anything. It’s a school for magic, for fuck’s sake. Of course their core values would speak louder than their will, and of course Tweek has turned out rotten both inside and out.

“Tweek, breathe.” Craig grips him harder, a blessed bridge to reality. Tweek squeezes back, digging nails into the wood of the stool below him. “We’ll get through this, honey. It’s okay.”

Tweek’s shoulders finally sag in acceptance. Stability in Hufflepuff was an ideal, but how far would it truly bring him? Would it give him the strength to pull away from what he’s known all these years, the hold his parents have over him, the way his room whispers scorn into the anxiety-ridden corners of his mind? More than security, he wants freedom.

He will never, never find it in Hufflepuff.

_Are you sure,_ Tweek wonders, _that this is how it should be?_

The hat laughs, an odd and dusty little sound. “Don’t worry child, I know my job. You’ll learn to laugh, if first you sob. Ambition first, and cunning last; hold tight your core to flee your past.” 

That’s all he needs. He closes his eyes, breathing low, and when the hat calls his new house out to the crowd it feels like a second chance granted to make something of himself. 

Over the uproar, he finds Craig and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> as a side note i love slytherin and i firmly believe it's got good potential, but to little boys like tweek it probably seems super damning to be sorted into slytherin, huh. anyway i love slytherin tweek


End file.
